Film review: FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Paring down Thomas Hardy’s melodrama, Thomas Vinterburg (The Hunt) allows the emotional weight of Far From the Madding Crowd to rest with Carey Mulligan’s exceptional and contemporary interpretation of Bathsheba Everdeen – an heiress who wants respect from her employees and personal independence as well. 

For a woman of her time, living in the rural backcountry of England, Bathsheba finds herself battling against her professional and her romantic aspirations. Three suitors – Mr. Boldwood (Michael Sheen, excellent, underused), Seargant Troy (Tom Sturridge) and Gabriel Oak (Matthias Scoenaerts) – orbit around her like planets, each an entirely different specimen from the other, offering her things that others cannot: passion (Troy), security (Boldwood) and love (Oak). They’re attracted by her will and her boldness, and yet they each want to tame her and make her theirs.

A persistent theme in Hardy's novels shows men and women at the constant bend and pull of their passions, as untamed and wild and calamitous as the nature that surrounds them. The ideas of Hardy blend subtly into this adaptation, rather than over-extravagantly as they do in previous renderings (see the odd 1967 Julie Christie version). What results is a watchable, well-balanced, and persistently surprising adaptation of Hardy’s bizarre rendering of love and passion. The hills, the cliffs, the waves, the rustling of the grain, the bleeting of the sheep, the raggedy costumes of the peasants and the songs they sing – it's all framed with depth and emotion by Mr. Vinterburg’s lens, and none of it ever feels overwhelming. 

He works in a collection of moments. Its best finds Bathsheba singing with Mr. Boldwood, while another disturbing, equally compelling scene observes from a chatotic distance Oak's sheep getting thrown off a cliff by a sheep-dog. (The sheep-littered beach is quite an image, and it informs the darker nuances of the romance between Oak and Everdeen.) Another scene, between Boldwood and Oak and taking place after Everdeen ties the knot with Troy, rattles as Sheen conveys his character's grief. It’s a tremendous instance of acting.  

All these moments are Hardy-esque, but they also indicate Vinterburg in his element, combining the macabre and surreal with a naturalistic landscape. The director and writer seem to work better together in atmospheric creations than in narrative arcs.

The solid ensemble of the film grounds the somewhat muddled plot: Michael Sheen (Masters of Sex) is an especially haunting presence, as he teeters on the brink of desperation and madness. Schoenharts and Strurridge, though not at the level of Sheen, are also solid here, giving shade and nuance to characters that function mainly as chess pawns to the plot.

Vinterburg appears to be struggling with the source material at every turn, and this is especially true of the character arcs. The climax, in which Boldwood shoots Troy, is exemplary in its confounding nature. It’s a moment of riot, of passion, and of tumultuousness that feels out of place in Vinterburg’s interpretation of Madding Crowd. It feels determined, rather than organic. It’s Hardy’s way of cheating us of the very conflict he sets up, killing off two birds with one stone.

If anything, the adaptation suffers from its allegiance to Thomas Hardy’s classic novel. There doesn’t seem to be enough sufficient material in the source to make Vinterburg’s vision coalesce. In what may be the film's strangest turn of events, Troy – seeing the corpse of his longlost bride-to-be, Fanny, along with his baby's – goes off on Everdeen, blatantly saying that he no longer cares about her. After this spectacle, he goes for a swim and “drowns” in the ocean. His character is always somewhat of a sphinx, but his actions here simply do not make any sense. One minute, he’s an evil, abusive monster. In another, he’s this emotionally scarred soldier attempting to kill himself. The balance is never achieved genuinely. This whole subplot, in fact, never really melds into the movie at all.

Likewise, Schoenhart’s Oak feels too good, too noble, too dedicated to heiress Everdeen. Another actor would have added more of a rugged and eccentric exterior to Oak, rather than giving him the face of a Danish supermodel and little more. The character itself never quite exists on his own terms, in the novel or in the movie.

More than the other filmed version, however, Mr. Vinterburg’s Far From the Madding Crowd shines with authenticity, and does not shy away from its more disturbing elements. That it ends a little too feel good, with more pervasive issues including a stagy construct and male characters registering flatly, is less Vinterburg's fault than Hardy’s. He is an author whose work has aged, and it's difficult to envision his characters in a truly authentic way. Yet Vinterburg manages that impressively, allowing Carey Mulligan to give one of her best and most expressive performances to date.

Despite a flawed finished product, Vinterburg adapts Hardy’s story with palpable life. This Far From the Madding Crowd ends up a pleasant and often surprising movie-going experience, filled with exquisite set-pieces and wonderful performances. It’s worth the watch, unevenness and all.

Grade: B to B+